Students' Corner: Judith

The Old English poetic Judith is a free translation of the second half of the Scriptural Book of Judith. It tells the story of the eponymous heroine, whose city – Bethulia – is besieged by an overwhelming Assyrian force, led by the general Holofernes. She goes into his camp and pretends to support him, until one night he drinks himself into a stupor and she beheads him with his own sword in his bed. Carrying the head in her food bag, she travels back to Bethulia and commands her people to attack the Assyrians. Lacking their leader, the Assyrians are utterly destroyed, and the poem ends with the spoils of war being brought back to Judith and with celebration of God’s power to protect.

Along with a classic Old English poetic glorification of battle at its climax, the poem reshapes the source in order to focus heavily on just the two main characters. It also converts the admirable Scriptural general into an intended rapist and invents an entirely golden mosquito net that covers Holofernes’ bed.

As a result of manuscript damage, we now only have the story from the point at which Holofernes starts drinking, meaning that we don’t know how the poet handled Judith’s arrival at the military camp; we also don’t know whether the poetic version of her tried to dazzle and seduce Holofernes or was merely present at his grotesque performance of debauchery. Certainly, the quite complicated Scriptural characters are simplified: Judith becomes a pure and virginal saint-like figure; Holofernes the most toxically masculine of men.